Page 21 of Tell Me

Lucien had respected me as an equal and promised me even footing in my marriage.

And then I’d decided that he had to be in on the game with my father and decided to run. Once I got back to New York and the world I knew, I’d scratched New Orleans out of my mind and never looked back. New York was my home, where my new family and friends lived, and I had never wanted anything more than that. I had a career and a city full of people who respected me. A reputation that always proceeded me.

But Lucien was my family, too. And Camille, and Beau, and the people I used to run with down here when I was forced to visit. And the thought of being with them again—the thought of Lucien saving me so many times tonight and then saying yes to sending his men with me to New York—was tempting in a way I’d never seen coming.

Fuck, one night back in New Orleans and I’d lost all my New York saunter and become a god damned romantic. Where the fuck was the girl who could twist men around her finger with a single glance and get them to do whatever she wanted? What about the girl who had managed to stitch a man up with little more than a first aid kit after he’d been shot?

The girl who could find a solution for a problem anyone might have, and never even chip her nail polish?

I felt my lips twitch. That girl was still in there. She just knew a good deal when she saw it. And Lucien was offering me a good deal. I’d just have to get my own feelings out of the way to take it. And figure out how to adjust the idea of ‘coming home.’

We found a door before I could follow that thought any further, and moments later I was slipping through it after the broad shoulders of my one-time fiancé. We darted into a well-lit hallway, but I didn’t get a chance to breathe a sigh of relief. Instead, Lucien spun and pinned me to the wall with his body, every inch of him hot as fire and his eyes burning right through me.

“Well?” he asked.

I tipped my head. “Well what?”

He leaned in and brushed his lips against mine, giving me just enough of him to bring my blood to a boil. And when he drew back, his eyes were even hotter. “Well, I asked you a question. And you have yet to give me an answer. I’ll loan you my men. But first...”

But first.

Right.

I took a deep breath, opened my mouth, and gave him my answer.

18

BROOKS

ONE DAY LATER

I slid my head around the corner of the brownstone and stared at the street in front of me. The street itself was deserted of normal citizens. Anyone with any sense must have seen what was going to happen before it started and run for their lives.

And they were smart.

Because it had become a battleground. Bodies littered the asphalt and concrete, most of them dead, and the cars on either side were full of bullet holes. Guns were blazing as the two sides continued to fire at each other and I could barely see through the smoke of it. Voices screeching, car engines roaring, guns firing...

And then a flash of blond hair as Dante Rossi finally popped her head up and looked around. Thank fucking God. I’d tracked her phone to this intersection and had guessed pretty quickly at what happened. My tracking app told me that neither Sloane nor Penny was here and that Joseph and Michael were both en route, which meant one of two things. Either someone had kidnapped Dante and brought her here—totally possible—or she’d come on her own to try to work out some sort of deal.

Given the girl’s inability to respect her own mortality, I wasn’t discounting it. After all, this was the girl who’d walked right into Dax Romano’s mansion and demanded that he team up with the Rossi family to defend themselves against the Massimos.

The Massimos. My eyes swiveled back to the other side of the street and I squinted against the smoke. Was that who had Dante? It made sense, and if the suits and ties and sunglasses were any indication, then those were indeed Massimos. That was Anthony’s family.

I wondered if he was over there, too.

My heart lurched at the thought, telling me to run and find him, but I put it down. Anthony could take care of himself. I was here for Dante and her brothers. My friends.

My family.

I jerked my gaze back to Dante to find her standing on the street, now, aiming her gun at someone. She straightened her shoulders, took a breath, and pulled the trigger, and not far from her, a man’s head exploded.

“Good girl,” I breathed.

Then I noticed a crowd of men coming around the corner two blocks down. I didn’t recognize these ones. Fuck, I didn’t even understand how they were dressed. They didn’t look like New Yorkers. Their clothes didn’t make sense, and they definitely weren’t wearing the uniform of any of the New York families.

I knew we had Massimos, Rossis, and Brennans here. It didn’t take a fucking genius to figure that out. But who the fuck were the new guys?

The crowd suddenly parted and I realized that they weren’t just walking. They were surrounding something that looked like a fist fight. What the fuck was going on here? Was this some sort of traveling circus?

---